Australian/New Zealand Luthiers Forum

I've used Titanium White powered mixed with epoxy resin for my color filled name on my head stock for years. You need to mix it in well, then I pore some out on some baking paper and massage it with a credit card to make sure that there are no dry clumps left. If there are and you inlay it, you will...

This just posted by William-Grit Laskin on a FB group some of us belong to.

Hi Folks--LACEY ACT ALERT!
For anyone shipping into the US, the value threshold for Lacey to apply has been $2,500. Just 2 weeks ago, as a result of the new tarrifs, the threshold has been dropped to $250.

Very nice Allen. It's an interesting concept. What bracing did you use it? Wayne I wasn't sure how much extra tension these strings would have and asked a couple of builders that do banjo ukes. They felt that it wouldn't be much more than a high tension set of nylon. So I went with my standard fan ...

A referral from a client to his band mate resulted is something completely new to me. He was looking for an instrument that had more punch than his nylon strung Baritone and really liked the strings that were on his Beltona resonator. So a few emails back and forth we agreed to this. Australian Blac...

Honduran Mahogany and Indian Rosewood built for a fellow that is struggling with a full size Classical guitar now that he's getting older. We discussed what would help him out and settled on this.

What is your method for cutting oval soundholes (and rosettes). I can’t recall if you have described this previously, or are you doing it by CNC now? I do them on the CNC. I built one about 8 years ago now. Timber inlay pieces are cut on my Laser. I also make my fret boards and bridges on the CNC.

yakka wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 03, 2025 6:50 pm

Beautiful work again, How many do you make in a year?

Between 20 and 25 is a typical year.

Been ages since I posted anything from what I've been producing, but being the last instrument for the year might as well show you all something. This one was commissioned by a fellow in Melbourne that had seen a previous instrument and wanted something similar. A curly Australian Blackwood body, Ro...

I'm not using it as a finish. I seal the timber with Starbond thin CA and scuff it back. Very much like you would with Shellac. Use the Timbermate and sand it back. Then nothing more than what you would call a spit coat of the Starbond thin CA. Then scuff that back before applying my polyurethane fi...

I can second how good Nigel's method is.

He told me about it several months ago and now after 3 batches of instruments with some of them with the most difficult to fill pores I'd never go back to the epoxy method.

I've been doing my complete fret board on my CNC for 10 years. I use Fusion360 for my CAD/CAM and made up a Master Model to create any scale as well as nut and saddle width, fret board thickness, radius etc. Building everything from a narrow Soprano scale to a Guitar and everything in between. Blind...

Many of us have been purchasing timber from Bob (RC Tonewoods) for decades. He had supported and sponsored this forum from it's beginning. I still have a Cocobolo and German Spruce guitar set he donated as an fundraising auction to help with costs of running the forum. https://www.lombardofuneralhom...

I've had similar emails many times over the years Peter. Just tell them to piss off. It's only a scam to part the easily fooled with their money.

I've had a 40W Epilog for 12 years. First up, don't bother with trying to engrave or cut any Ebony. Simply won't happen especially with just 5W. At that power output you will only have success at engraving in lighter color softwood in a single pass. It will take multiple passes to do any cutting at ...

3M and Autoglym are also excellent buffing products. 3M range is huge so it might take some research into the best option.

I'm on several forums with full time luthiers all over the world and see similar tales with them dealing with their bureaucracy becoming more over the top and onerous to navigate......and expensive in time and fees. Common consensus is that for pain free shipping experience keeping the declared valu...

Absolutely every thing you could think of has been tried as a pore filler. And I have tried a fair number of them. Nothing new under the sun. It comes down to what you want to accomplish, how much time you are willing to devote to it, and what are your expectations such as clarity, sink back or movi...

I got that one at JayCar. If you are not in Australia a Electronics store, or I suppose Amazon. Though the later option was more expensive than the one I purchased.

Folk instruments such as Ukuleles have use of many more options for soundboards. Most were not particularly difficult or expensive to source for where the instrument was built. So mahogany, koa, mango in Hawaii are traditional for body and soundboard. Australia has heaps of local timbers that the re...

I switched to BoteCote epoxy with no-yellowing hardner years ago. Always add their TPRDA thinning additive. Living in Cairns it is dead easy to mix and is very thin going on even in what you could call our "Winter". Always gets 3 sessions for all timbers and 4 for the odd one that has enormous pores...

Been working on how to switch to laminated back and sides for a while now. The way most accomplish this using the outside mould to do the sides was just a royal PITA far too prone to poor glue up if you didn't get the clamps / cauls just so. Especially difficult on the very tight curves on small uku...

I've been using this tool for several years now and it does everything it's suppose to. Clean, fast and accurate. Couldn't ask for more.

When I decided I wanted to be a full time builder I had been doing some time / process testing to work out where I could save time, increase accuracy etc. to be more productive so it would be possible to replace the income from the day job. Didn't take long to come up with a list of huge time waster...

The 4X6mm rods that are linked are the ones I've been using for 10 years.

I use the standard width tang fret wire and had used the SM 0.023" fret saw until I changed to doing slots on my CNC. When my fret slots were cut straight through on the table saw my fret boards always had a back bow. When I switched to blind fret slots (similar to a bound fret board) my fret boards...